FIG. 1 illustrates a general prior art hardware environment for pushing data to a receiving computing device.
As illustrated, there is a data-pushing device 100, such as one or more network servers or other computing devices, that pushes data onto a network 102. The data-pushing device is responsible for generating or forwarding data that is ultimately received by a receiving computing device 104. The network can be any combination of conventional and proprietary networks such as an intranet or the Internet.
A receiving computing device 104, also in communication with the network, receives the pushed data. Various protocols for receiving pushed data are known in the art. For example, see the PointCast system by EntryPoint of San Diego, Calif. Generally, the receiving computing device 104 listens to a particular data channel, e.g., a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network port, broadcast channel, frequency range, etc. for data pushed by the data-pushing device 100.